Toward an Integrated RF-Shield-Gradient Coil Design Method

Hector Sanchez-Lopez¹, Ewald Weber¹, Michael Poole¹, Limei Liu¹, Stuart Crozier¹

The RF shield aims to prevent electromagnetic interactions between the RF coil and the electromagnetic environment in which the coil is immersed. The slits in the RF shield cut the path of the eddy currents flow, thus ameliorating deleterious effects such as mechanical vibration and power heating. This last effect can significantly deteriorate the RF coil. In this paper we present an integrated design RF-shield-gradient coil in which power loss due to eddy currents is reduced by more than 8 times than of a conventional design. We demonstrated that an integrated design process conduces toward novel gradient coil.